Wouldn't worry too much about this... elements within the Government can keep suggesting the filter all they want, but it has 0 public support, 0 industry support and their own trials have shown it to be technically infeasible. Like the last attempt, I doubt this will pass the Senate in any form other than a very watered down form (maybe a simple DNS blacklist covering a few dozen sites... which frankly isn't too bad because it doesn't slow down the net, doesn't prevent you getting around it, and you can always use other DNS servers anyway).
1. No amount of public support and public consultation is going to change Michael Atkinson's mind over this issue. Even very strong public support (91% of Australian adults support an R18+ rating for games, according to polling). Since Mr. Atkinson holds the power of veto for changing this law, even if the Federal Government STRONGLY URGES the introduction of an R18+ rating, he doesn't actually HAVE to give in to their demands (although there may be political consequences if he doesn't).
On the other hand...
2. It is great that this issue is finally being taken seriously by the general public, and is being given headlines in the major newspapers around the country today. This lends legitimacy to what gamers have been saying for ages - that game classification IS a serious issue and gamers are not kids. It's been pushed from a niche topic, to the mainstream, and that is how laws will get changed. So I'm quite encouraged by this. Michael Atkinson is unlikely to continue vetoing a change to the law if 90% of the public are behind it AND the Federal Government strongly recommends a R18+ rating in an official report... like any other poltician, there is a point at which Mr. Atkinson will just have to bite the bullet and tow the party line. Woot:)
Mind you, the existing 'ban' (more accurately a lack of a classification preventing the sale of certain games... you can still purchase them online and legally own and play them), isn't really a huge deal anyway. Ebay/overseas retailers are your friend.
I did look it up on Wikipedia. I was just relaying the running joke (and what I could remember about one particular example) from law school which was prior to 1995 anyway, as it happens. I was more referring to the general mindset of "one set of rules for us, one for everyone else" that is prevalent (rather than the issue of treaties more generally... that was just an example).
Are you sure your Olympics example is right btw? All the other countries that have both signed and ratified it, and passed it into local law, obviously field athletes under 18 in the Olympics. So are you implying that every other country is contravening the convention that they have ratified? Genuine question here - I don't know the specifics... it just sounds like it can't possibly be right.
Fair enough. I'm an American citizen (by marriage) and have lived in the US a while, so I know the American psyche and can see where you're coming from.
I just think it's odd that it's so often the US, and the US alone, that has lingering concerns stopping them ratifying things like this.
If it were 180 countries vs. 20 countries, then that would tend to suggest that there were some serious and genuine issues, since multiple countries have come to the same conclusion. If it were 195 and 5 even. But it's very often the US that stands almost completely alone.
Although the concerns the US has in each case are perfectly legitimate when examined on their own, its a trend that's difficult to ignore and would tend to indicate that the US has some 'different' way of thinking about things. It's almost as if they are just trying to be 'different' for the sake of being different, to emphasise their power and independence, rather than examine things on their merits.
See also: countries not using the metric system. The US isn't dumb - they have the brightest scientific community in the world and the world's largest economy, so they must be aware of the benefits a move to the metric system would bring (and have demonstrably brought to other places). Yet - they are almost alone in not doing it. Something just doesn't make sense there...
Why do Americans always seem to have this attitude? It always seems like they want all the benefits from being part of international organisations, but none of the responsibilities. When I did International Law at university the running joke when being introduced to a new treaty or instrument was that it had been signed by "basically everyone... except the US".
One quite shocking example: the only two countries that are not signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are Somalia and the US (and Somalia has announced plans to ratify it soon). I mean for God's sake, what possible objection could the US have against a treaty aiming to prevent the organised sale of children into slavery and child prostitution??
There are quite a few other fairly fundamental treaties that the US is virtually alone in not ratifying. Kinda amusing really when you consider the UN building itself is in New York. Why provide the facilities for all these other countries to come in and make agreements, and not participate yourself? Seems odd to me...
This is true (and is one of the main reasons most documents released by international bodies such as the UN are aspirational or voluntary only).
But, there are real and serious problems with cross-jurisdictional crime (of many types... forget hacking, try fraud, money laundering etc) that traditional forces find it very very hard to tackle due to jurisdiction. There's a balance to be had somewhere. You shouldn't be able to get away with things just by fleeing to a different place. It's like the old 'driving over the county line', on a larger scale.
I foresee this running into a lot of problems. I mean, we can't even get a lot of countries to agree to ICJ (International Court of Justice) jurisdiction. How are we going to get them to agree to let people physically into their countries to investigate crimes and make arrests? Ain't gonna happen... and this kind of thing is only effective if everyone signs up without reservations.
Agreed. I've always just gone out, bought a new phone outright, and whacked my existing SIM card in it when I got home. None of this contract crap. But from what I can tell it is very hard/impossible to do that in the US? Which sucks... I hate being tied to a particular carrier (and besides I have several SIM cards floating around that I tend to use in different situations).
Even worse, the US phones I've seen actually brand the phone hardware/firmware itself with the carriers logo and stuff. Wtf?! The phone should have NOTHING to do with the carrier. The analogy you made with brand X Wifi cards only working with brand X hotspots is a good one.
Funny you should mention the competitive disadvantage US companies have because they have to pay American employees' healthcare, because it's actually even worse than that! Many US companies pay for all their employees' healthcare regardless of where they live.
I live in Australia but work for a major US software company, which laughably gives me the best of both worlds but must be a tremendous drain on my company's bottom line. Here's the situation...
Australia has universal healthcare. The system works like this:
- Healthcare is free or very cheap via the universal public healthcare system.
- This universal system is funded by a surcharge on top of your standard income tax, but only if you make a moderate to high amount of money. Poorer people don't pay a cent, and still benefit from the system. Wealthy people pay essentially 1 or 1.5% extra income tax which isn't a huge deal in the scheme of things.
- However, you can avoid some or all of the surcharge if you take out private health insurance. The existence of a public/universal health care system does not mean there is no private option, and indeed Australia has a thriving private health insurance industry. Thus, those that can afford private healthcare are encouraged to purchase it, because it reduces the drain on government money, and also means you don't have to pay the healthcare-related surcharge on your taxes.
Australian employers therefore do not, and have never, paid for healthcare. Healthcare is NOT tied to your employer, even if you have private insurance (you pick a company and buy that insurance yourself, just like car insurance or house insurance). And if you don't have private insurance... the public system will still cover you.
However, the American company I work for, apparently because it is too complicated to set up different HR regimes for each country, pays for private health insurance for me and my whole family, even though that is virtually unheard of for companies in Australia to do. So basically - my company pays for a (expensive high level) health plan for me, I enjoy the coverage of that plan... AND I make a saving in my taxes because I'm avoiding the surcharge for the public system (because I am covered by a private fund and not draining the public one).
Great for me! But wow, that must cost my company a lot to do that everywhere in the world, when really they only need to do it for their American employees... lol.
Mod parent up... a rather nice summary of the difference between interpretations of the word 'right' in the US vs. elsewhere, and unfortunately doomed to be buried since it was posted as an AC...
Well depends what you define as broadband I suppose.
It's quite easy to get guarantee that ~everyone~ can get ~some form~ of broadband. You just need a satellite or two. Two-way sat connections can provide pretty decent throughput to any spot in the country, which more than satisfies the definitions of 'broadband'. Expensive though... and the latency is terrible which makes it impossible to use for many of the applications you'd traditionally think of when you thought of a broadband connection.
Surely broadcasting technology (one sender, many receivers) like TV and radio is inherently better suited to one-way communication, and the Internet, due to its point-to-point nature, is inherently much more flexible and able to do the whole collaboration thing though?
Indeed. Infrastructure paid for by the public purse should remain publicly owned, or at the very least, owned by companies with strict legal separation from companies that provide services over that infrastructure. Many countries have learnt this lesson the hard way - speaking as an Australian, much of the reason broadband here is so expensive is due to the fact that the owner of virtually all the infrastructure (the ex-Government monopoly Telstra) obviously has the ability to control the market in retail broadband provided over that infrastructure.
The new National Broadband Network infrastructure being rolled out over the next 5-10 years however (a fibre-to-the-premises GPON providing 100mbit to 90% of the population and 12mbit to the remainder) will be owned and managed independently of any people providing services (Internet, VoIP, IPTV) over that network. I agree with you that this is a much smarter way to do it and you definitely don't want to end up with the 'only one company to choose from' situation that you have now (and many other countries have had in the past).
Yes and this actually mirrors the gradual rollout of electricity too. Remote areas obviously got connected to the electricity grid later than more populous towns and cities.
They wouldn't be allowed to operate a motor vehicle in virtually any country other than the US. Don't know why the US is so lenient on drink-drivers. Where I live, it's seen as one of the MOST serious crimes, and even a single infraction is likely to have your license revoked for a very, very long time.
Just wanted to clarify that the 'linux' on these machines I'm talking about is some awful custom distro that noone in their right mind would keep. But the point is - they are in stores and you can just take them home, reformat, and install distro of your choice.
Huh? That's weird...I also live in Australia and was going to post that I'm not surprised that APAC seems to be a successful market for these Linux netbooks. The Linux netbooks are displayed quite prominently (along with the Windows ones of course) in quite a few retailer. JB Hifi springs to mind... the one near my place has the linux netbooks right there on the ends of the aisle... actually ~more~ prominently placed than the Windows ones now that I think about it.
Must be one of those things that varies depending on the particular store and demographic. The area I live in is quite 'young and techy' so perhaps the Linux netbooks do well here compared to other places in Australia.
I am fairly certain that the anti-virus software makers would have been approached by the FBI and told not to detect their particular trojan's signature.
Mod parent up. The GP does not reflect majority Australian opinion on this. Once the one guy that is holding this up is voted out/retires, we'll get our R18 rating for games. But as with all things in Government, it takes time.
In the meantime, buy it from Ebay and enjoy the game. It's not 'banned' from being owned by people in Australia, it's merely not able to be sold on shelves... that's all.
Don't know why you got modded up so much, with this flamebait suggesting Australia isn't free. I could point to many areas where the US is substantially less 'free' than Australia (including censorship - the degree to which you censor/bleep nudity and profanity from movies and TV shows over there is kinda amusing).
Anyway, the poster you are replying to is a little misguided and certainly does not reflect majority Australian opinion. Most Australians DO want an R18 rating for games. We are generally far less prudish than the average American, actually, when it comes to what we do and don't want to see.
Also there's no real 'ban' here. You can still import the game or order it online, no problems. You just can't stock it on retail shelves in Australia because it hasn't been officially rated. The lack of a R18 rating meant the game couldn't be fit into any of the rating categories the classification board had available to it. Not much they can do about it.
Most people, the Federal Government, and every State government in Australia, ~except one~, supports an R18 rating for games being introduced to remedy the problem. I mean, there's an R18 rating for videos and movies etc...so it makes sense to have one for games. But the South Australian A-G is vetoing the amendment to the law at the moment.
As soon as that man is out of office (which will happen, sooner or later), I fully expect this situation to be remedied. There is substantial public movement behind this and we are doing it in a democratic way. In much the same way as Americans would go about getting an antiquated law updated. We aren't substantially less free than the Americans... I don't know where that idea comes from. We have virtually the same democratic institutions and fundamental founding principles as you do (indeed, the drafters of the Australian Constitution and Federal Government system borrowed heavily from the good bits of the US system).
I'm not the GP obviously but I'm a dual US-Australian citizen and have lived in both countries extensively so I feel I can answer this.
The key difference between the US and Australia when it comes to censorship is not really the severity of censorship, but rather what it is targeted at. Australia frowns more upon depictions of violence, the US more against nudity, sex, and profanity
Violence on TV news in Australia is therefore glossed over much like it is in the US. The exception to this is the SBS news (SBS is a channel primarily showing content from overseas, including full, unedited news bulletins from stations in many other countries).
So with violence - not much difference. However, US media censors nudity and swearing WAY, WAY, WAY more than in Australia. In Australia full frontal nudity is perfectly allowable (and not uncommon) on standard free to air stations after a certain time of night. Similarly, even prime time shows can contain a decent amount of swearing (including 'serious' swear words that you would never hear on US TV). By comparison, I've heard US media bleep out some words that we wouldn't even consider swear words in Australia! Australian TV never 'edits movies for TV' or 'bleeps' anything out, really. Except maybe in the after-school timeslot (say 4pm-6pm).
So on balance, I have to say censorship is much more stringent in the US than in Australia. Similar for violence on TV, but much less strict with nudity, sex and swearing. As an example, the furore in the US over the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident a few years ago would never have even raised an eyebrow here in Australia.
You have to remember that the incident in the TFA is simply that the game was too violent to fall under the MA15+ rating, and because there IS no R18+ rating for games, it couldn't be classified. They didn't actively say "we are not allowing this because we don't like it". It's not strictly speaking a "ban". You are still perfectly entitled to import a copy or buy it from Ebay. You just cannot ~sell it on the shelves~ in Australia. It's simply that the classification board cannot place it under any of the ratings they have available to them. And as explained in several other posts in this thread, an R18+ rating for games is essentially being blocked by a single man - the South Australian Attorney-General. Every other jurisdiction (and most of the population) would support an R18+ rating for games.
Exactly. The lack of a rating just means Australian retailers can't legally sell the game. Doesn't mean you can't play if it you order it from ebay or an overseas website. Which is exactly what everyone does.
Yes this is a good point and I think people outside Australia need to understand this...
Most people in Australia, the Federal Government, and all the State and Territory Governments, support the introduction of an R18+ rating for games (much as we obviously already have for movies).
All, of course, except one jurisdiction - South Australia, and specifically its Attorney-General.
There isn't really a widespread opposition in Government against such a rating. It truly is the result of one man in this case... unfortunately the law requires all States to agree in this case, so until Michael Atkinson gets replaced, this is how it is.
Having said that, it doesn't really affect much. People just mail-order the game from an overseas retailer anyway if they really want to play it (or they pirate it). The lack of the rating doesn't mean you can't play it. It just means people can't legally ~sell~ it.
Agreed - I walk to and from work (2.1 km / 1.3 mi / 25 min each way)... it's great. Saving money on fuel and parking and getting a reasonable quota of exercise in for the day without having to specifically "try" and exercise. I recommend it to anyone:)
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Wouldn't worry too much about this ... elements within the Government can keep suggesting the filter all they want, but it has 0 public support, 0 industry support and their own trials have shown it to be technically infeasible. Like the last attempt, I doubt this will pass the Senate in any form other than a very watered down form (maybe a simple DNS blacklist covering a few dozen sites ... which frankly isn't too bad because it doesn't slow down the net, doesn't prevent you getting around it, and you can always use other DNS servers anyway).
Well I'm in two minds about this:
1. No amount of public support and public consultation is going to change Michael Atkinson's mind over this issue. Even very strong public support (91% of Australian adults support an R18+ rating for games, according to polling). Since Mr. Atkinson holds the power of veto for changing this law, even if the Federal Government STRONGLY URGES the introduction of an R18+ rating, he doesn't actually HAVE to give in to their demands (although there may be political consequences if he doesn't).
On the other hand...
2. It is great that this issue is finally being taken seriously by the general public, and is being given headlines in the major newspapers around the country today. This lends legitimacy to what gamers have been saying for ages - that game classification IS a serious issue and gamers are not kids. It's been pushed from a niche topic, to the mainstream, and that is how laws will get changed. So I'm quite encouraged by this. Michael Atkinson is unlikely to continue vetoing a change to the law if 90% of the public are behind it AND the Federal Government strongly recommends a R18+ rating in an official report ... like any other poltician, there is a point at which Mr. Atkinson will just have to bite the bullet and tow the party line. Woot :)
Mind you, the existing 'ban' (more accurately a lack of a classification preventing the sale of certain games ... you can still purchase them online and legally own and play them), isn't really a huge deal anyway. Ebay/overseas retailers are your friend.
I did look it up on Wikipedia. I was just relaying the running joke (and what I could remember about one particular example) from law school which was prior to 1995 anyway, as it happens. I was more referring to the general mindset of "one set of rules for us, one for everyone else" that is prevalent (rather than the issue of treaties more generally ... that was just an example).
Are you sure your Olympics example is right btw? All the other countries that have both signed and ratified it, and passed it into local law, obviously field athletes under 18 in the Olympics. So are you implying that every other country is contravening the convention that they have ratified? Genuine question here - I don't know the specifics ... it just sounds like it can't possibly be right.
Fair enough. I'm an American citizen (by marriage) and have lived in the US a while, so I know the American psyche and can see where you're coming from.
I just think it's odd that it's so often the US, and the US alone, that has lingering concerns stopping them ratifying things like this.
If it were 180 countries vs. 20 countries, then that would tend to suggest that there were some serious and genuine issues, since multiple countries have come to the same conclusion. If it were 195 and 5 even. But it's very often the US that stands almost completely alone.
Although the concerns the US has in each case are perfectly legitimate when examined on their own, its a trend that's difficult to ignore and would tend to indicate that the US has some 'different' way of thinking about things. It's almost as if they are just trying to be 'different' for the sake of being different, to emphasise their power and independence, rather than examine things on their merits.
See also: countries not using the metric system. The US isn't dumb - they have the brightest scientific community in the world and the world's largest economy, so they must be aware of the benefits a move to the metric system would bring (and have demonstrably brought to other places). Yet - they are almost alone in not doing it. Something just doesn't make sense there...
Why do Americans always seem to have this attitude? It always seems like they want all the benefits from being part of international organisations, but none of the responsibilities. When I did International Law at university the running joke when being introduced to a new treaty or instrument was that it had been signed by "basically everyone ... except the US".
One quite shocking example: the only two countries that are not signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are Somalia and the US (and Somalia has announced plans to ratify it soon). I mean for God's sake, what possible objection could the US have against a treaty aiming to prevent the organised sale of children into slavery and child prostitution??
There are quite a few other fairly fundamental treaties that the US is virtually alone in not ratifying. Kinda amusing really when you consider the UN building itself is in New York. Why provide the facilities for all these other countries to come in and make agreements, and not participate yourself? Seems odd to me...
This is true (and is one of the main reasons most documents released by international bodies such as the UN are aspirational or voluntary only).
But, there are real and serious problems with cross-jurisdictional crime (of many types ... forget hacking, try fraud, money laundering etc) that traditional forces find it very very hard to tackle due to jurisdiction. There's a balance to be had somewhere. You shouldn't be able to get away with things just by fleeing to a different place. It's like the old 'driving over the county line', on a larger scale.
I foresee this running into a lot of problems. I mean, we can't even get a lot of countries to agree to ICJ (International Court of Justice) jurisdiction. How are we going to get them to agree to let people physically into their countries to investigate crimes and make arrests? Ain't gonna happen ... and this kind of thing is only effective if everyone signs up without reservations.
Agreed. I've always just gone out, bought a new phone outright, and whacked my existing SIM card in it when I got home. None of this contract crap. But from what I can tell it is very hard/impossible to do that in the US? Which sucks ... I hate being tied to a particular carrier (and besides I have several SIM cards floating around that I tend to use in different situations).
Even worse, the US phones I've seen actually brand the phone hardware/firmware itself with the carriers logo and stuff. Wtf?! The phone should have NOTHING to do with the carrier. The analogy you made with brand X Wifi cards only working with brand X hotspots is a good one.
Funny you should mention the competitive disadvantage US companies have because they have to pay American employees' healthcare, because it's actually even worse than that! Many US companies pay for all their employees' healthcare regardless of where they live.
I live in Australia but work for a major US software company, which laughably gives me the best of both worlds but must be a tremendous drain on my company's bottom line. Here's the situation...
Australia has universal healthcare. The system works like this:
- Healthcare is free or very cheap via the universal public healthcare system.
- This universal system is funded by a surcharge on top of your standard income tax, but only if you make a moderate to high amount of money. Poorer people don't pay a cent, and still benefit from the system. Wealthy people pay essentially 1 or 1.5% extra income tax which isn't a huge deal in the scheme of things.
- However, you can avoid some or all of the surcharge if you take out private health insurance. The existence of a public/universal health care system does not mean there is no private option, and indeed Australia has a thriving private health insurance industry. Thus, those that can afford private healthcare are encouraged to purchase it, because it reduces the drain on government money, and also means you don't have to pay the healthcare-related surcharge on your taxes.
Australian employers therefore do not, and have never, paid for healthcare. Healthcare is NOT tied to your employer, even if you have private insurance (you pick a company and buy that insurance yourself, just like car insurance or house insurance). And if you don't have private insurance ... the public system will still cover you.
However, the American company I work for, apparently because it is too complicated to set up different HR regimes for each country, pays for private health insurance for me and my whole family, even though that is virtually unheard of for companies in Australia to do. So basically - my company pays for a (expensive high level) health plan for me, I enjoy the coverage of that plan ... AND I make a saving in my taxes because I'm avoiding the surcharge for the public system (because I am covered by a private fund and not draining the public one).
Great for me! But wow, that must cost my company a lot to do that everywhere in the world, when really they only need to do it for their American employees ... lol.
Mod parent up ... a rather nice summary of the difference between interpretations of the word 'right' in the US vs. elsewhere, and unfortunately doomed to be buried since it was posted as an AC...
Well depends what you define as broadband I suppose.
It's quite easy to get guarantee that ~everyone~ can get ~some form~ of broadband. You just need a satellite or two. Two-way sat connections can provide pretty decent throughput to any spot in the country, which more than satisfies the definitions of 'broadband'. Expensive though ... and the latency is terrible which makes it impossible to use for many of the applications you'd traditionally think of when you thought of a broadband connection.
Surely broadcasting technology (one sender, many receivers) like TV and radio is inherently better suited to one-way communication, and the Internet, due to its point-to-point nature, is inherently much more flexible and able to do the whole collaboration thing though?
Indeed. Infrastructure paid for by the public purse should remain publicly owned, or at the very least, owned by companies with strict legal separation from companies that provide services over that infrastructure. Many countries have learnt this lesson the hard way - speaking as an Australian, much of the reason broadband here is so expensive is due to the fact that the owner of virtually all the infrastructure (the ex-Government monopoly Telstra) obviously has the ability to control the market in retail broadband provided over that infrastructure.
The new National Broadband Network infrastructure being rolled out over the next 5-10 years however (a fibre-to-the-premises GPON providing 100mbit to 90% of the population and 12mbit to the remainder) will be owned and managed independently of any people providing services (Internet, VoIP, IPTV) over that network. I agree with you that this is a much smarter way to do it and you definitely don't want to end up with the 'only one company to choose from' situation that you have now (and many other countries have had in the past).
Yes and this actually mirrors the gradual rollout of electricity too. Remote areas obviously got connected to the electricity grid later than more populous towns and cities.
They wouldn't be allowed to operate a motor vehicle in virtually any country other than the US. Don't know why the US is so lenient on drink-drivers. Where I live, it's seen as one of the MOST serious crimes, and even a single infraction is likely to have your license revoked for a very, very long time.
Yeah replying to myself.
Just wanted to clarify that the 'linux' on these machines I'm talking about is some awful custom distro that noone in their right mind would keep. But the point is - they are in stores and you can just take them home, reformat, and install distro of your choice.
Huh? That's weird...I also live in Australia and was going to post that I'm not surprised that APAC seems to be a successful market for these Linux netbooks. The Linux netbooks are displayed quite prominently (along with the Windows ones of course) in quite a few retailer. JB Hifi springs to mind ... the one near my place has the linux netbooks right there on the ends of the aisle ... actually ~more~ prominently placed than the Windows ones now that I think about it.
Must be one of those things that varies depending on the particular store and demographic. The area I live in is quite 'young and techy' so perhaps the Linux netbooks do well here compared to other places in Australia.
I am fairly certain that the anti-virus software makers would have been approached by the FBI and told not to detect their particular trojan's signature.
Wait ... I posted a genuine impression I got from being a first time Linux user, and I get modded flamebait?!?
WTH Slashdot. I've never been modded flamebait or troll on ANY other post in my life and I can assure you this was not my intention.
Mod parent up. The GP does not reflect majority Australian opinion on this. Once the one guy that is holding this up is voted out/retires, we'll get our R18 rating for games. But as with all things in Government, it takes time.
In the meantime, buy it from Ebay and enjoy the game. It's not 'banned' from being owned by people in Australia, it's merely not able to be sold on shelves ... that's all.
Don't know why you got modded up so much, with this flamebait suggesting Australia isn't free. I could point to many areas where the US is substantially less 'free' than Australia (including censorship - the degree to which you censor/bleep nudity and profanity from movies and TV shows over there is kinda amusing).
Anyway, the poster you are replying to is a little misguided and certainly does not reflect majority Australian opinion. Most Australians DO want an R18 rating for games. We are generally far less prudish than the average American, actually, when it comes to what we do and don't want to see.
Also there's no real 'ban' here. You can still import the game or order it online, no problems. You just can't stock it on retail shelves in Australia because it hasn't been officially rated. The lack of a R18 rating meant the game couldn't be fit into any of the rating categories the classification board had available to it. Not much they can do about it.
Most people, the Federal Government, and every State government in Australia, ~except one~, supports an R18 rating for games being introduced to remedy the problem. I mean, there's an R18 rating for videos and movies etc...so it makes sense to have one for games. But the South Australian A-G is vetoing the amendment to the law at the moment.
As soon as that man is out of office (which will happen, sooner or later), I fully expect this situation to be remedied. There is substantial public movement behind this and we are doing it in a democratic way. In much the same way as Americans would go about getting an antiquated law updated. We aren't substantially less free than the Americans ... I don't know where that idea comes from. We have virtually the same democratic institutions and fundamental founding principles as you do (indeed, the drafters of the Australian Constitution and Federal Government system borrowed heavily from the good bits of the US system).
I'm not the GP obviously but I'm a dual US-Australian citizen and have lived in both countries extensively so I feel I can answer this.
The key difference between the US and Australia when it comes to censorship is not really the severity of censorship, but rather what it is targeted at. Australia frowns more upon depictions of violence, the US more against nudity, sex, and profanity
Violence on TV news in Australia is therefore glossed over much like it is in the US. The exception to this is the SBS news (SBS is a channel primarily showing content from overseas, including full, unedited news bulletins from stations in many other countries).
So with violence - not much difference. However, US media censors nudity and swearing WAY, WAY, WAY more than in Australia. In Australia full frontal nudity is perfectly allowable (and not uncommon) on standard free to air stations after a certain time of night. Similarly, even prime time shows can contain a decent amount of swearing (including 'serious' swear words that you would never hear on US TV). By comparison, I've heard US media bleep out some words that we wouldn't even consider swear words in Australia! Australian TV never 'edits movies for TV' or 'bleeps' anything out, really. Except maybe in the after-school timeslot (say 4pm-6pm).
So on balance, I have to say censorship is much more stringent in the US than in Australia. Similar for violence on TV, but much less strict with nudity, sex and swearing. As an example, the furore in the US over the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident a few years ago would never have even raised an eyebrow here in Australia.
You have to remember that the incident in the TFA is simply that the game was too violent to fall under the MA15+ rating, and because there IS no R18+ rating for games, it couldn't be classified. They didn't actively say "we are not allowing this because we don't like it". It's not strictly speaking a "ban". You are still perfectly entitled to import a copy or buy it from Ebay. You just cannot ~sell it on the shelves~ in Australia. It's simply that the classification board cannot place it under any of the ratings they have available to them. And as explained in several other posts in this thread, an R18+ rating for games is essentially being blocked by a single man - the South Australian Attorney-General. Every other jurisdiction (and most of the population) would support an R18+ rating for games.
Exactly. The lack of a rating just means Australian retailers can't legally sell the game. Doesn't mean you can't play if it you order it from ebay or an overseas website. Which is exactly what everyone does.
Yes this is a good point and I think people outside Australia need to understand this...
Most people in Australia, the Federal Government, and all the State and Territory Governments, support the introduction of an R18+ rating for games (much as we obviously already have for movies).
All, of course, except one jurisdiction - South Australia, and specifically its Attorney-General.
There isn't really a widespread opposition in Government against such a rating. It truly is the result of one man in this case ... unfortunately the law requires all States to agree in this case, so until Michael Atkinson gets replaced, this is how it is.
Having said that, it doesn't really affect much. People just mail-order the game from an overseas retailer anyway if they really want to play it (or they pirate it). The lack of the rating doesn't mean you can't play it. It just means people can't legally ~sell~ it.
Agreed - I walk to and from work (2.1 km / 1.3 mi / 25 min each way) ... it's great. Saving money on fuel and parking and getting a reasonable quota of exercise in for the day without having to specifically "try" and exercise. I recommend it to anyone :)